The obliteration and economic destruction of entire countries, the destruction of cultural sites and announcements of possible missile attacks – how US President Donald Trump uses social media to make policy. A summary shortly before the election.

The US elections are just around the corner at the end of October 2020 and the whole world is eagerly awaiting the outcome of the vote. If Donald Trump has his way, the result is certain – and if his political opponent wins, he will probably contest it. For weeks and months, he has been sowing doubts among the population about a postal vote that is not fraud-proof. His hunger for success is so pronounced that he is unlikely to simply accept defeat. This reveals a character trait that, together with his extroversion and narcissism, he has demonstrated time and again on Twitter during his four years in office. Regardless of whether the topic he is commenting on concerns individuals, associations, institutions at national or international level or entire countries, he has been posting tweets without inhibition since January 2017. Threats and insults are the order of the day. Like on Sunday, May 19, 2019: A missile hits the government and diplomatic quarter of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, not far from the US embassy. A few hours later, a clear tweet from the 45th President of the United States followed, in which he apparently blamed Tehran for the attack: “If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of it! Never threaten the United States again.”

A sensitive tweet due to the escalating situation in the Gulf region. A possible war scenario was also being discussed at the time. The situation appears to escalate further at the beginning of January 2020. On the night of January 3, a deadly airstrike was carried out on General Ghassem Soleimani, who is considered the best-known face of the Iranian military abroad. This is followed by vows of revenge from Tehran, which are answered by President Trump with a renewed threat via Twitter.

In the event that Iran were to attack US citizens or American facilities, there is a list of 52 important Iranian targets that would then be attacked. These attacks would be “very quick and very strong”, writes Donald Trump. He ends his series of tweets with the words: “The US wants no more threats!” Tense situation or not, Donald Trump posts another warning to Iran in mid-April: “I have instructed the US Navy to shoot down and destroy all Iranian warships if they harass our ships at sea.”

According to the US military, Iranian Revolutionary Guards boats and US warships are coming dangerously close to each other in the Persian Gulf. The US describes the action as “dangerous” and “provocative”. Even at the beginning of the US President’s term of office, it is clear which channel he prefers to use to make statements from the Oval Office. In April 2017, for example, US military exercises with South Korea lead to a threat of nuclear war from North Korea – and Pyongyang announces missile tests. These are actually carried out weeks later under the supervision of ruler Kim Jong-Un. The never-ending “threat games” and provocations on both sides led Donald Trump to speak of the total destruction of North Korea in his first speech to the United Nations General Assembly at the end of September 2017 if the country did not cease its nuclear policy. The then North Korean foreign minister responded with a threat and warned of “North Korean missiles visiting the entire US mainland”. Trump’s response follows promptly, via Twitter of course: “If he echoes thoughts of little Rocket Man, they won’t be around much longer!”

A year later, in 2018, Russia becomes the Twitter warrior’s target: a suspected poison gas attack by the Syrian government on a rebel enclave prompts Donald Trump to post the following short message: “Russia has vowed to shoot down any missiles fired at Syria. Get ready, Russia, because they’re coming, nice and new and ‘smart’! You should not be partners with a gas-killing beast that kills its people and enjoys it too’!”

Moscow is a close ally of the Syrian government in the civil war, whereas Washington sees the responsibility for the poison gas attack as lying with this very government. In both January and October 2019, Trump let Turkey know via Twitter that he would “economically destroy” the country.

The background: Trump supports the Kurds in northern Syria and wants to prevent military action being taken against them by threatening Turkey. On the other hand, he has been taking a lurching course in Syria and Turkey policy for months: in December, he announced that he would withdraw around 2,000 American soldiers from the civil war country. In February, the government then announced that several hundred soldiers would remain in order to stabilize security in the Kurdish regions. Following further threats by Erdogan to invade northern Syria soon, the USA offered to help Turkey establish a “security zone” along the border in August. In October 2019, it was announced that all US soldiers would withdraw from the Syrian-Turkish border region. You could almost believe that the American president is targeting a different country every year. With U-turns in all sorts of directions, he also gets his party colleagues to publicly criticize his decisions or even resign. His often insulting and borderline offensive reactions on Twitter to political events around the world have led to warnings from the short message service. Individual tweets by the US head of state are blocked for “glorifying violence” or violating social network rules of conduct, or are “fact-checked” due to incorrect information. The incumbent president’s election campaign account was even blocked completely in August. Trump sees all of this as censorship, is threatening stricter regulation of social networks and is likely to have already identified a new opponent for his possible second term in office that he can pillory digitally. Will he also target North Korea, Turkey, Iran or other countries via Twitter again? It would probably be a big surprise if he were to refrain from doing so.

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